Cabello’s bill failed to advance out of committee. We hope it is revived later in the legislative session.

Lower, Brownell, Madison, Bacino and Nelson are among the 175 C-number prisoners in the Illinois Department of Corrections — inmates who were convicted and received indeterminate sentences. No matter how long the sentence or how heinous the crime, an inmate regularly gets a chance at freedom.

Those crimes were truly horrific: Rape. Brutal beatings. Execution-style killings. What is enough time behind bars for crimes like that? We’ve reviewed the facts of these cases and concluded that life behind bars is the only fair punishment.

If they were convicted today, they most likely would be sent away for life without the possibility of parole. Determinate sentencing became the law in Illinois in 1978. Truth in Sentencing laws passed in the 1990s require people convicted of first-degree murder to serve 100 percent of the sentence.

The victims’ families want to see the convicts serve 100 percent of their sentences and have worked diligently to make it happen. Petition drives and working with state’s attorney’s offices and driving to Springfield for parole hearings take a lot of time and energy.

Lower and Brownell have been denied parole this year. They’ve never received a vote for parole. Nelson’s past three attempts at freedom have been unanimously rejected.

Bacino came up one vote short in 2007, and Madison came within three votes in 2013.

Very few C-number inmates get that close or get paroled. It seems like a waste of time for everyone involved to go through the process when the outcome appears predetermined.

Page 2 of 2 - The Illinois Prisoner Review Board deals with nearly 43,000 cases a year, ranging from release reviews (about 23,000) to clemency requests (about 800) to the 90 or so C-number reviews. Board members have plenty to do without hearing cases that are unlikely to advance.

But Cabello’s proposal is about giving families of victims a break. They’ve already lost loved ones who can never be replaced. They don’t need to have those losses revisited as often as they are.